Image Alt Text Auditor
Find images with no alt text — and the ones whose alt text says nothing.
The page to audit
How this check works
Every img element on the page is read and sorted into three states rather than two, which is the whole point. A missing alt attribute is the worst outcome: a screen reader falls back to announcing the filename, so a gallery becomes a recital of DSC_0421.jpg. An empty alt is correct and deliberate — it tells a screen reader to skip the image entirely, which is what a decorative flourish should do — and flagging it as an error is how checkers push people into describing spacer graphics. And alt text of "image", "logo" or a filename is present, passes every check that counts attributes, and is worth less than nothing to a listener.
What the results mean
- No alt attribute
- The image is announced by its filename. The one state that is always wrong.
- Deliberately empty
- alt="" means "skip this". Correct for decoration, and reported as a pass rather than a fault.
- Unhelpful alt text
- "image", "logo", "DSC_0421.jpg". Present and useless — worse than empty, since it gets read out.
- Described
- Alt text that at least attempts to convey what the image shows. Accuracy is beyond what any tool can check.
Common problems and fixes
- It found no images at all
- They are probably CSS backgrounds or inserted by JavaScript. CSS backgrounds are presentational and need no alt text; script-inserted images do, and are not visible in delivered markup.
- Our CMS fills alt with the filename automatically
- That is the worst of both: it satisfies automated checks and tells a listener nothing. Turning the automation off is usually better than leaving it on.
- What should alt text say for a logo?
- The organisation name — the information the image conveys — rather than "logo". If the logo is inside a link to the homepage, the alt text is what the link announces.
Frequently asked questions
When should alt text be empty?
When the image conveys nothing a listener needs: a decorative flourish, a spacer, an icon beside text that already says the same thing. An empty alt attribute tells a screen reader to skip it. That is a deliberate and correct choice, and it is different from having no alt attribute at all, which makes the reader announce the filename instead.
Does alt text help SEO?
Modestly and genuinely — it is how search engines understand images, and it is what shows when an image fails to load. The larger reason is that a substantial number of people cannot see the image at all, and the alt text is the whole of what they get.
What makes alt text bad?
Describing the file rather than the picture. "Image", "photo", "logo" and a camera filename are all present and useless, and they are worse than nothing because they get read aloud. So does starting with "image of" — the reader already announced that it is an image.